Yesterday, I prayed in Arabic in a public setting. I was at a party for people in my Biblical Hebrew class, the teacher half-jokingly (but half seriously) asked if anyone wanted to give the prayer over the food (brownies and ice cream? are these things really going to nourish us or give us strength?) in a different language.
Naturally, I waited about three seconds and then I volunteered to say it in Arabic. Most of the people in the class do not speak modern Hebrew and, after carefully checking to make sure no one spoke Arabic (somehow I missed the guy who works in the office next to me, is fluent in both modern Hebrew and Arabic, and went to Morocco on a study abroad in '06...oh well!!!), I prayed in Arabic. I am no stranger to praying in Arabic, as I do it often in my personal prayers, but this was the first time I had ever done it in a public setting.
It was a victory, to say the least.
It went quite well, actually--but I realized how little I really know how to say in Arabic! But other than not knowing how to say "safely" (instead, I prayed that we might all drive home on a "good road"), it wasn't as bad as it might have been!
The real test, though, will come when I pray with people who actually speak Arabic!
No comments:
Post a Comment